


call it macaroni

by alekszova



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: First Kiss, Fluff, M/M, One Shot, at Clemens Point, since that's where i'm at in the game rn.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:54:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21807787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alekszova/pseuds/alekszova
Summary: Charles finds Arthur a present when he's out hunting.
Relationships: Arthur Morgan/Charles Smith
Comments: 17
Kudos: 128





	call it macaroni

He finds it when he's out hunting. Bright red and sticking out amongst the dirt and the leaves. He didn't see the bird that dropped it, albeit he assumes it comes from a cardinal. Charles picks it up from the ground, wipes the dirt off with a cloth from his pocket. It's pretty—shining brightly in the light of the setting sun.

It makes him think of Arthur, and he doesn't know why. Maybe it's the color. The same red as Arthur's favorite shirt. The plaid one he seems to never let go of. Wearing it until it's caked with dirt and people around the camp have to nag at him to change his clothes, which always results in him stealing the singular red one from Charles’ bags. He doesn't think anyone even knows it belongs to him, Arthur wears it more often than he does and it's so completely common in style that there's little reason to associate it with him.

He tucks the feather away between the pages of a book in his satchel to keep it from getting ruined. Hopes that the time between now and his return that it will stay safe and sound.

  
  


When Charles comes back, he finds Arthur by his horse. Running a brush across Peaches’ side, setting it down to feed her slices of apple out of his palm. He thinks Arthur spends more time socializing with his horse than anyone else. He is constantly at her side, even when he’s at camp.

“Mornin’ Charles.”

“I got something for you,” he says as he takes the book from his bag, slides the feather out from between the pages. "When I was out hunting."

“Yeah? What is it?”

He holds the feather up, returning the book back to it’s home. Arthur doesn’t say anything. He is always in the in-between of saying nothing or too much. He is either mute, or it takes the world to keep him from speaking.

Charles lifts his hand, reaching for Arthur’s hat when he takes a small step back. “What’re you doin’?”

“Hold still.”

“Hold still—? What are you goin’ to do to me?”

He’s so defensive, it makes Charles have to bite back a smile. So annoyed and so ready to fight at the littlest thing, but Charles isn’t an idiot. He knows Arthur. He’s a softie. Nice, deep down. He’s overheard Arthur asking the others about their day, asking about how he can help. He keeps very little money to himself—always gives it back to the camp to improve the things for them and keep the supplies stocked up. The only money he keeps in his pocket is spent on goods for Peaches.

He remembers a few weeks back, when Jack talked about wanting a chocolate bar and he left immediately, returned in a heartbeat with a little bit of candy for him. And when Tilly told him that she lost her necklace, he spent a week trying to find the perfect one to replace it. He gets up early in the morning to do chores, he stays out late to fish and hunt to bring back and provide for people. He’s a good person, despite his tendency to start fights about absolutely anything.

And more than that—

Arthur talks like he’s a terrible person, but he isn’t really. None of their souls are pure anymore, but Arthur’s may be one of the ones that are the least tarnished.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, and he watches Arthur visibly relax. He doesn’t know why those words always have such an effect on him. He’s said them a dozen times in a dozen situations. The first time, Arthur didn’t seem to believe him. Months ago, when Arthur was bucked off his horse and Charles had reached forward to remove the leaves and twigs from his hair and Arthur had flinched away.

At the time, he had thought it was just an instant reaction from being thrown off of Peaches. But the second time, the third, the fourth—

Times when all Charles was going to do was help fix the twisted strap of his suspenders or adjusting the bandana around his neck and once when he had moved forward to kiss him.

It was a while ago. In the middle of the night when nobody else was around. After Arthur had gotten into a fight and his nose was nearly broken. There was something about the shape of it that was off. He’d reached out without thinking. Traced the line of his nose, silenced the words that Arthur was saying.

Then leaned close, whispered a promise, left a kiss on the corner of Arthur’s mouth. It was the reaction Arthur had that made him never try it again. The way he sat there looking forward, looking terrified. Not terrified of Charles but the same type of fear that Charles would get every time he realized he liked somebody that wouldn’t be deemed appropriate by all the other people who considered someone like him wrong.

The same type of fear that left him paralyzed for wanting somebody that society would never let him have. The fear that if he allowed himself to have it, to go for it, would bring a world of hurt.

Maybe that’s why Charles promised him. Maybe that’s why he keeps promising him and why he’s never tried to kiss him ever again.

They hold hands, sometimes. Brief moments stolen whenever they’re by each other. It’s always Arthur reaching for his—Charles doesn’t want to initiate anything anymore. It’s become something like a gap he needs Arthur to be the one to close. He has a strange feeling in his chest, sometimes, that he ruined them with that kiss. 

But now when Arthur hears that little promise, those six little words, he relaxes. He doesn’t tense up, doesn’t look at Charles with a look of disbelief and caution. He believes him. He trusts him.

They’ve come a long way, the two of them. Arthur actually smiles at him genuinely now. In the way that he hides from the others. Charles never really means to make him laugh, but whenever he does he feels a little sense of pride. Like it’s an accomplishment. He’s never considered himself an especially funny person—but Arthur makes him feel like it whenever he laughs or smiles at the rare and far between jokes he makes.

“Okay,” he says, breaking Charles’ train of thought. “Go ahead.”

Charles steps forward, one hand going to Arthur’s chin to turn his head to the side, the other reaching up with the feather to place it carefully in the band around his hat. It sits beside another one. Old and worn, soft shades of brown, spotted with white. The red one looks almost fake beside it—so vibrantly colored, but they look good together, the new-and-old divide aside.

“What’d you do?” Arthur asks, hands removing the hat from his head, turning it to spy the feather. “Where’d you get this?”

“I told you, I found it when I was out hunting.”

He almost asks if Arthur wants it, but decides against it. Decides that it’s better to make it seem like Arthur doesn’t have a choice in the matter to accept the gift. It will be an unnecessary five minutes spent trying to convince Arthur to keep it while Arthur tries to convince Charles he doesn’t deserve it—despite the fact he stumbled upon it on accident.

Though, he’d be lying if he said he didn’t want to gift something to Arthur. Something small, something that might not be considered too much for someone like him.

“It’s nice, but—”

Charles takes the hat from his hands before he can finish the sentence, setting it back onto his head, doing his best to keep whatever argument Arthur wants to start at bay. He wishes there were a way to convince him that he deserved it. Deserved anything, really. Arthur always thinks of himself as selfish when it’s so entirely opposite. All he does is for the others. He hardly even sleeps.

“Charles.”

His hands move, one resting on the side of Arthur’s face, the other at his side, quickly taken by Arthur’s. They’re standing too close and it makes Charles want to kiss him. He always wants to kiss him. There have been so many times when Arthur’s made him so angry he’s almost done it just to shut him up.

“Keep it,” he says, even though Arthur’s never been able to complete his sentence of trying to give it back. “It’s yours.”

“Charles—”

“Do you want me to write your name on it?”

“It’s a feather. I don’t think you could.”

And if they were in a different situation, Charles thinks he would laugh. He thinks he would lean forward and rest his forehead against Arthur’s. He thinks he would kiss him to keep everything like this. Some sense of tranquility. He doesn’t know how to describe it—the feeling he gets when he’s with Arthur. He just knows it makes him happy. Like bubbles, caught in his chest, just behind his lungs and his heart.

But all he can afford now is to smile, to move his hand away, to pretend that he doesn’t want more.

“Thank you,” Arthur says quietly, and he squeezes Charles’ hand tightly before letting go. A sign that they should break apart and stop pretending, but he doesn’t let go that easily. He holds onto Arthur’s hand as he walks away, forcing the distance to break it for them, since it seems as though Arthur isn’t quite ready to let go of him either.

  
  


He doesn’t keep his hands off of it for the first few days, and even in the following weeks, he finds himself holding his hat, running his fingers along a feather that’s getting just as worn down as the other one. But it’s still bright red, it’s still sitting there with the other one. And Arthur finds when he’s sitting on the edge of a cliff, overlooking trees and rocks and rivers, watching wildlife continue on without the increasing number of civilization taking it over, that he isn’t looking at the view anymore. He isn’t paying attention to the beauty of the sun set behind the trees opposite of him, and the glow it makes of the sky. He isn’t watching the stars above him. He is looking at the feather, thinking of Charles.

Probably just as Charles had planned.

Getting in his head. Making the thoughts of him never go away.

As if they could. They popped up the moment Charles showed up at camp, and they stayed and stayed with every hunting trip, and they’ve been cemented in place the day Charles almost kissed him.

Or did kiss him. It was a half-kiss, Arthur decides. And that half-kiss was enough to carve Charles' name inside of his bones in a way that meant it would never leave.

  
  


_He lost it. He lost it. He lost it._

He had to leave. He couldn’t stay. There were three guys, laying on the ground unconscious and he couldn’t stay and keep looking. He found the hat but the feather was gone, missing from where it was so seemingly safe in it’s spot next to the other one. It feels like a betrayal. A stupid fight gone wrong and now the only thing he really cared about is missing. It doesn’t just feel like he’s lost a little red feather. It feels like he’s lost Charles. Lost the only piece of him that he’s ever been given.

There’s dirt on his hands—more than usual. Jammed under his nails and coating his arms. He’d started digging, scratching at the surface of the grass trying to see where it had fallen. He’d kicked the bodies of the others, rolled them over to see if it had fallen there. He doesn’t know how long it’s been missing, but he knows it must’ve happened in the fight. He always checks on it. _Always._

It was there before. It’s gone now. It’s missing. It’s nowhere to be found but he can hear a wagon coming this way and he can’t be caught with three dead people laying on the ground. He can’t risk having to pay more money on a bounty when it should be going to the people at the camp that need it more.

How fucking stupid. How reckless. How idiotic.

**_He’s_ ** so fucking stupid. So fucking reckless. So fucking idiotic.

  
  


Charles isn’t at the camp when he gets back. He’s gone. Missing. Not missing-missing. Everyone knows he’s left to go hunting. He’ll be back in the morning, at the latest. His trips don’t always go overnight. Sometimes they do—not that Arthur blames him. Sometimes all he wants to do is go camping in the woods and not have to return here to listen to the arguments thrown back and forth between the people. But today he’s annoyed. Bordering on furious, trampling through the woods nearby that he knows Charles goes to often. If he isn’t here, Arthur doesn’t know where he’s going to go to find hin, he just knows he _has to._

Every second without him feels like a panic building up. As if the missing feather will somehow turn into a missing Charles and somehow he will be left all alone, and he will have never said anything. He won’t have told Charles enough times that he’s glad he’s here. He said it once, and he said it with barely a shred of the sincerity that he actually felt behind the words.

“Charles?!” he yells, his voice echoing throughout the trees. There’s a sound of hooves on the ground, running fast and the rustling of trees and bushes.

“Arthur,” Charles says, appearing a few yards away, looking just as angry and annoyed as Arthur is feeling. “What is wrong with you? You scared the deer away.”

“I was looking for you,” he says, walking toward him. “You went missin’, you had the whole camp worried.”

“The whole camp?”

“I said what I said,” Arthur says, coming to his side. “You’re always out here hidin’ in the fucking woods when someone needs you.”

“And who needs me?”

Arthur goes silent, his jaw clenched tight as he tries to find words. Anything to say that would actually be true in the last few moments. But he can’t find them. They are lost somewhere in the back of his head, muddled with all the things he hasn’t allowed himself to say or feel because it’s not the way this is supposed to go, and he doesn’t have an excuse. He can’t come up with anything to say that Charles would believe as a reason he’s out here, yelling at him.

“Are you going to say anything, Arthur? Or did you just want to—”

“Me.”

“You need me?”

“Y-Yeah,” he says. “Don’t act like it’s a big fuckin’ deal, Charles.”

“No?”

“No. It was just—I don’t know,” he mutters, taking his hat off, turning it over in his hands. “I lost your feather.”

“Arthur—”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“I know,” Charles says. “You came out here just to tell me that?”

“No,” he says. “I didn’t. Well, yes, but—No.”

“Arthur? Do you even know what you’re saying?”

“No,” he says with a small laugh. “Do I ever?”

“Probably not.”

Arthur takes another step forward, and the panic in his chest has mutated and formed into something else. A different kind of thing that is bordering on the impossible to overcome, but he wants to. Arthur lost the feather, and he doesn’t want to lose Charles, but Charles isn’t moving away when Arthur comes closer and closer. He isn’t pushing Arthur back. He is doing the opposite. His hand is on Arthur’s waist, and he is tugging him those last few centimeters closer.

“I won’t hurt you,” Arthur says quietly.

He knows the words are off. He knows it isn’t exactly what Charles said to him a dozen times over and it took those dozen times to believe him. But he says them anyway, because he knows they’re true and when Charles smiles back at him, he feels a twinge inside of his stomach that tells him despite everything, _this_ is _right_.

Arthur doesn’t really know what to do. He’s never really, truly kissed Charles before. He’s never kissed someone taller than _himself_ before. But he angles upward and his free hand is on the fabric of Charles’ shirt, pulling him down the slightest bit and it takes less than a second for him to drop his hat, for his other hand to help bring Charles down because the kiss isn’t enough. He needs him closer.

Arthur didn’t plan this. He would never plan this. He doesn’t even know why he did this. His impulsivity is always getting the best of him, but he’s glad. He feels secure. He feels, for a split second, like this is where he’s meant to be. Kissing Charles in the woods, being kissed by Charles in the woods, scaring deer away so he can kiss Charles in the woods.

He pulls back, feeling the nerves in his stomach jumble together in a nervous laugh, “Sorry I yelled at you. And that I lost your feather. I really liked it.”

“I can find you a new one.”

“Yeah?” Arthur says. “What excuse will I have for running around in the woods lookin’ for you?”

“You don’t need one.”

“No?”

“Never,” Charles says quietly. “But don’t scare the deer away next time.”

Arthur laughs, and it’s louder than he means to laugh. It is always louder than he means it to be. But Charles doesn’t push him away. He keeps him there, he keeps him in this small space with his stupid loud laugh and he smiles and Arthur knows that next time Charles gives him a feather, he will not lose it. He will never lose Charles again.

**Author's Note:**

> hi. i still haven't finished the game. i know it's been 6 months since i posted something for them. anyway happy holidays. arthur is an idiot


End file.
